“It’s gonna take time, a whole lot of precious time.”
– George Harrison

In the age of instant everything, speed often gets mistaken for quality. Businesses reward those who can move quickly, and journalism is no different. But when it comes to storytelling—especially in journalism—it is essential to get it right. Speed without depth risks creating shallow stories that lack integrity, like “parachute journalism” and sensationalism. For those who aim to tell impactful, authentic stories, here’s why patience and precision are indispensable.

The Drawbacks of “Parachute Journalism”

In the military, airborne troops can be deployed almost anywhere, often with little warning and minimal preparation time. This concept, known as “parachute journalism” in the media, involves reporters dropping into unfamiliar territories and trying to cover stories without in-depth knowledge. This approach, often rushed, can lead to errors, misinterpretations, and a lack of understanding about the community or subject. The result? Stories that miss the mark and ultimately erode public trust in journalism.

Similarly, “yellow journalism” prioritizes attention-grabbing headlines and sensationalism over well-researched, accurate news. While both approaches differ in form, they stem from the same issue—rushing without prioritizing the time and effort needed for accuracy.

Essential Ingredients for True Journalism

True journalism requires far more than quick dispatches and viral headlines. Here’s a breakdown of the vital ingredients that make stories resonate with the public and stand the test of time:

1. Truth through Verification
   Journalism is built on the professional discipline of assembling and verifying facts. Rushing to publish before verifying can lead to misinformation and damage to credibility. Thoughtful verification is at the core of storytelling that people can rely on.
2. Commitment to Community
   Great journalism serves the community first, not advertisers or click-through rates. The audience consists of everyday citizens who trust journalists to present facts responsibly. Serving the community over profit helps build credibility and trust in the long term.
3. Objective Methods
   Journalists must consistently test information objectively. Unlike social media, where “trusting your gut” may prevail, journalism’s backbone lies in systematic verification, minimizing bias to maintain integrity.
4. Independence in Reporting
   Independence is crucial to avoid bias, whether pressure from influential figures, advertisers, or even internal influences within a newsroom. A journalist’s loyalty should be to the truth, not any organization or crowd.
5. Watchdog Role
   Journalism is crucial in holding institutions accountable by keeping the public informed. From fact-checking public statements to investigative reporting, the journalist’s role as a “watchdog” helps citizens stay informed about issues that may demand social change.

The Challenge Today: Fighting “Fake News” and Mistrust

With sensational stories and unchecked information rampant online, the public often turns to friends or unverified sources rather than professional journalism. This preference has contributed to a rise in “fake news,” exploiting the erosion of trust in established media. Unfortunately, the actions of a few unethical journalists have cast a shadow over the entire profession, just as isolated scandals have in other fields. Now, many journalists find themselves in an uphill battle to restore trust.

The Takeaway: Great Stories Require Patience

Good journalism doesn’t happen overnight. When you rush, you risk distorting stories and letting assumptions shape the narrative. Take the time to understand the subject, research meticulously, and verify every detail. As George Harrison sang, “It’s gonna take patience and time.” You can only deliver stories that genuinely resonate, inform, and inspire change.

Join Storytellers Abroad Missions Multimedia Workshop in Lima, Peru, January 2 – 17, 2019.

Go to the website to learn more about the trip on the website.

A teaching team is a fantastic group.

• Jeff Raymond, ABWE Director of Visual Communications
• James Dockery, ESPN Video Editor
• Patrick Davison, UNC School of Media/Journalism
• Stanley Leary, Adjunct Professor UGA, Freelancer & Workshop Leader

Each person is given a story to work on during their time in the country. We have constructed the course so that each person can have one-on-one time with the instructors to help coach them through their stories.

QUALIFICATIONS/REQUIREMENTS

– A working knowledge of your DSLR camera and laptop computer
– An interest in using photo storytelling in missions

If you are a working professional, this course is designed to apply your skills and experience in a mission context and expand your tool kit into new disciplines and heights. You will discover how to use your expertise for Kingdom work.

If you are a student, this course is designed to fulfill the internship requirements of most photography, journalism, digital media, design, or missions majors. It may also qualify for course credit at your institution. Contact us to discuss the details.

The workshop fee includes all travel expenses from Harrisburg, PA (airfare, baggage, taxes, ground transportation, travel insurance), meals, housing, workshop tuition, supplies, use of equipment and software, and group activities.

Participants are responsible for their expenses to Harrisburg, PA, and any necessary immunizations, passport, or visa costs (depending on destination).

CONTACT

[email protected] | 717.909.2302

This is an excellent workshop because your leaders are working in the industry and have been teaching the art of storytelling for years.

I have been to many workshops myself through the years. Most leaders have been outstanding in the industry, but very few have been exceptional teachers. We all want to create tomorrow’s storytellers and enjoy all of the students to succeed.

Here is one of the past stories from workshop participant Stacey Schuett in Togo, West Africa.

See some of the past stories produced during the workshop: https://vimeo.com/storytellersabroad.

Over the past few months, the massive destruction of the Kilauea volcano hasn’t been what we expect from Mother Nature.

We don’t expect our homes to be destroyed with no hope of rebuilding.

In this photo, you can see the home in the path of the destruction. This looks more like a scene from the 1958 science-fiction-horror film The Blob.

While enjoying my tourist helicopter ride to see the volcano’s power, I wasn’t thinking about the lives being destroyed by nature.

I was in the sky with other tourists on numerous helicopters flying over the volcano, being entertained.

I was in Hawaii to teach photography at The University of Nations, which is part of Youth with a Mission. The campus is now in the process of seeing how they can help some of the families displaced by the volcano.

I was listening to the founder Loren Cunningham as he talked about the plight of those who have lost their homes to the volcano.

I had been teaching on storytelling and knew that when you tell a good story it actually affects the audiences physical body.

In a good chase scene, you can feel your heart racing. When the main character is hiding and close to being found, your palms may sweat.

The gut-wrenching feeling I get when bills are due and the tight cash flow is how I felt when Loren Cunningham pointed out that these people had not just lost a home but still had to pay on their mortgages. They were now paying for something that they couldn’t rebuild or resell.

This is a different kind of natural disaster than the past fires, tornados, or hurricanes I have experienced. Volunteers organized to help clean up and rebuild the destructed areas during those disasters. They helped to restore people’s lives.

The closest disaster with some similarities was Katrina, where many could not go back and rebuild.

As you watch the updates on the volcano, please keep in mind all those who have lost their homes and are now in financial crisis.

It was a thrill to get the chance to go up in a helicopter and see the lava flowing at the Kīlauea Volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii. Dorie and Chelle gave me this present for father’s day.

While I had been in helicopters many times, clients paid for the experience. This time it was out of our pockets. I had wanted to do this for years.

I have been coming to The Big Island of Hawaii at the invitation of my good friend Dennis Fahringer. I have been teaching photography to his School of Photography students with the University of Nations, which is part of Youth with a Missions.

Now for 12 years, I have been driving to the Volcano, hoping for good photos. I have taken some pretty good pictures through the years. Here is one from February this year before they closed the Volcano National park due to the recent activity.

The best way to see the volcano is from the air.

This is an untouched photo right out of the camera. I just converted from Nikon NEF to a JPEG.

By shooting RAW, you can work with the photo in Lightroom just like we did in the film days in the Darkroom.

The number one tool that helps you when shooting from a helicopter is the Dehaze Slider.

There is a lot of haze created by the atmosphere, and over the volcano with VOG, you need to use this tool, or the fog clouds the photos.

Just compare this photo of Rainbow Falls I processed to the unprocessed image.

Now here are two short videos I shot while up as well. I processed these in Final Cut Pro X and corrected the footage for better contrast and color.

Kīlauea Volcano from Stanley Leary on Vimeo.

Kīlauea Volcano Fissure 8 from Stanley Leary on Vimeo.

I hope these tips help you see why shooting RAW and using Lightroom can make a HUGE difference in your photos.

Your old photos can look even better today due to technological advances. I returned to this photo of my daughter’s first day of school ten years ago to re-edit the image in the latest version of Adobe Lightroom.

You may like the earlier edit, but there are more possibilities with a few changes in Lightroom. First, they did a significant overhaul of the main engine in the software and then added new tools like Dehaze.

Today you can pick a color profile and use Dehaze; that was not an option in 2010.

Another control implemented in 2010 was Lens Correction improving all lenses by correcting for their imperfections.

Back in 2010, I didn’t even try to edit this photo. With the dehaze control, I could make the background much more accessible than doing this in 2010 would have required.

TIPS

Shoot RAW – you have more information to work with before exporting a JPEG in Lightroom.
Folder for a RAW and separate folder for JPEG – I ingest and put all my RAW files into a folder, and then when I finish editing and exporting, I put those in a different folder JPEG
Archive all photos – Keep the RAW images and your JPEG images. You can later return to these photos and discover some gems due to the software improvements in the future.

The key to fireworks is the foreground. The context helps give a sense of place.

When I started shooting the July of 4th fireworks this year in Roswell, GA, the location was slightly different than years past. I wasn’t sure exactly where they would be in the sky. I had a general idea, but I had a few problems when they started.

As the sun set, all the street lights in the parking lot we were in started to come on. When I first started shooting, this is what I was getting. The street light was creatine a flair and wasn’t very interesting. The street lights were distracting.

Using a tree in the parking lot to help with the street light also blocked some of the lower flying fireworks.

I picked up the tripod, went closer to the shops, and pointed the camera toward the high school where the fireworks were being launched. It gave me the best photos of the fireworks and making the street lights no longer a problem, but you only see a couple in the lower left.

I determined that the best place was to shoot the fireworks wide with a 14-24mm lens. This let me show all the community that turned out for the fireworks and helped to tell the story.

Earlier in the fireworks performance, I shot this with my Sigma 24-105mm ƒ/4 at 58mm. Fireworks look great, but this could be anywhere in the world. The wider shot helped me to show you what it looked like where I was in Roswell, Georgia.

Carry a couple of different lenses so you can change your approach if necessary. Be willing to move to get a different perspective. Most of all, take lots of photos. Only a few will be the keepers that you want.

Technical

ISO:                        100
Aperture:             ƒ/11
Shutter Speed:  5 seconds to 14 seconds [using Bulb]
White Balance: Fluorescent to match the Street Lights

I used a tripod and a cable release. I would start taking photos and stop after 2 to 4 fireworks go off.

Getting a well-exposed, color-correct photo will bring the most out of any subject.

When your photo is well exposed, you will see all the gradations on a grayscale. When you have your digital camera set to the proper white balance under flash you get the most dynamic range possible.

The color space of flash is dead center in the color wheel. Other lights like Tungsten, Fluorescent, Mercury Vapor, LED, and others are skewed off the center of the color wheel. While you can color correct these images by adding or subtracting colors to try and slide them back to the center, your color is never as good as under pure flash.

I shot this photo outside on the shaded side of my house. I color-corrected using “Custom White Balance.”

Using the ExpoDisc, I put this over the front of the lens and did an incident light reading and custom white balance.

I do this when shooting in the studio because softboxes often have a slight color cast that I can correct.

I cannot stress enough that the one thing that separates the very top photographers from the rest technically usually is white balance.

Colors pop when your exposure and color balance are on target.

SOBERING statistics published earlier this month show that the annual rate of suicide in the US has risen by almost 28 percent between 1999 and 2016.

I believe this is affecting businesses as well as individuals.

For this topic, I believe many of us are experts. Almost everyone will go through events that cause upheaval and crisis.

Depression causes one to look for relief. Unfortunately, many who are dealing with addiction start with depression.

I believe that in today’s economy, companies are showing signs of depression.

When you are depressed, you are prone to reach for things that give you pleasure but are not always the best. Ask any addict.

So many of us are looking for Likes or comparing our life to other people’s Facebook feeds.

We have gone from liking a post to loving, laughing, wow, sad, and even mad.

We are losing our compasses on how to navigate life. Instead, we are now looking to measure what is good or bad based on skewed analytics.

Opioids are primarily used for pain relief, including anesthesia. Many in business reach out for things like an opioid to make them feel better. That person has more followers than us. Let’s hire them. They can make it better. Remember, opioids not only can relieve pain, but they can also anesthetize you. I think many in business today are operating in a fog.

Communications departments have moved away from a solid story to choosing to use work based on the content providers’ social media feeds of likes and several followers.

Teaching in college and workshops, I experience more students who feel like they are already good photographers based on their social media likes from friends.

Brandon Stanton, the creator of Humans of New York, said, “Photography felt like a treasure hunt, and even though I sucked at it, I’d occasionally stumble upon a diamond. And that was enough to keep me wanting more.”

Stanton’s success is based on one simple truth–Everyone Has A Story!

People were drawn to his storytelling, which led to his massive following, but he didn’t go out and find someone doing something and copy it. Instead, he just went with his interest in the people on the streets of NYC. At first, he focused on visually exotic people, but slowly he discovered that everyone had a story.

Instead of trying to find the next “Cool Trend,” why not go with storytelling?

Stories allow the listener to learn vicariously and discover lessons seemingly on their own.

Stories make us feel a part of the situation.

Storytelling is tapping into people’s emotions that will help you to influence or persuade them.

Stories build connections between people. Those who tell stories are the ones making solid connections with their audience.

Storytelling is powerful because it engages the entire brain. A story, if broken down into the simplest form, is a connection between cause and effect.

Let me work with you and make your stories visual to be more engaging.

Cowboys compete in steer wrestling at the 27th Annual Pana’Ewa Stampede Rodeo put on by the Hawaii Horse Owners in Hilo, Hawaii, on February 18, 2019. [NIKON D5, 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6, ISO 1600, ƒ/5.6, 1/4000, Focal Length = 210]

The number one problem with people’s photos has always been blurry photos.

The four leading causes of blurry photos are:

1. The subject moves while the shutter is open
2. The camera moves while the shutter is open
3. Out Of Focus
4. The Depth Of Field is too shallow

Addressing the first two by using a proper shutter speed.

Shutter Speed

Minimum Shutter Speed [seconds] = 1 / Focal Length [mm]

If you have a 200mm lens on your camera, then the slowest you want to handhold the camera to take an in-focus photo is 1/200.

Now, in this case, where the mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms, is speaking,g I am on a tripod shooting at 600mm. Since she is not moving all that much, I was able to shoot at 1/100 because the camera is on a tripod.

When you are shooting something where the subject is moving, and the camera is moving to capture an image, as in sports, you need a breakneck shutter speed.

In this photo, the football players are moving very fast. Over the years, I realize I need to speed up the shutter speed to get sharp images.

When I started shooting sports with film, the highest ISO I could shoot was ISO 1200. Film’s ISO kept me shooting around 1/500 for most sports.

Only during day games was I able to get genuinely razor-sharp images.

Besides shooting at 1/4000 shutter speed, I am also using a monopod.

Most photographers on the sidelines of a football game use a monopod to help steady the camera.

Out of Focus

If your subject isn’t moving that much, like my person speaking, start by switching from multi-point to single-point focusing. There is either a joystick or pad on many cameras that lets you move your focus point around. Move this to the person’s face and as close to the eyes as you can.

You need to know that your camera has limits and that certain situations are difficult for the camera’s technology to work correctly. Here are some for you from my Nikon D5 camera manual.

Too Shallow Depth-of-Field

If your lens is wide open at an aperture of ƒ/2.8 or wider ƒ/1.4, then the depth-of-field is relatively shallow. The other piece affecting this is how close you are to the subject.

The closer you get, the more depth of field will get even shallow.

The top-of-the-line cameras tend to have the best focusing systems, which will track subjects allowing you to get that razor-sharp image. In addition, combining the best quality lenses and cameras can let you shoot wide open and get sharp photos.

However, if you cannot afford a 300mm ƒ/2.8 lens and have a 300mm ƒ/5.6 lens while you think that the depth-of-field is greater, your photos may not be in focus because the lens is too dark for the camera sensors to focus.

The other problem is a fast lens, but the focus system is struggling to keep the subject in focus. Difficulty focusing is where you close down the aperture to give you a little more wiggle room in the depth-of-field that your photos are still sharp.